


The Blood Gulch Radio Show

by halacombe



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Canon-typical language, Inspired by Welcome to Night Vale, Multi, There's not a whole lot of ships in the beginning, Weirdness, but it's getting there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-06
Updated: 2017-09-18
Packaged: 2018-10-28 18:39:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10837083
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/halacombe/pseuds/halacombe
Summary: Don’t follow the wind, don’t go through the door with no perceivable exit, and don’t question the mayor. This is the Blood Gulch Radio Show, and you can go fuck yourself!- Tags and Warnings to be updated





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Good morning, good morning! what a day! What a night, last night! Boy was that wind sure crazy._

Something is in the wind tonight.

It moans.

The air is too thick, the leaves, too restless. From somewhere, seemingly miles away, a car horn blares, bleary like the orange streetlights that try and light up the pitch black darkness of the night. The wind smooths over Donut’s face, full and lathering, and it digs its fingers into his hair and tugs him forwards, but he knows better than to comply. There was a warning this morning, the distinct siren that goes off when the wind is being impersonated blared and distracted him from his work at the bakery, and so he knows better. He stays still, on the edge of his steps and holding the banister with a steadying hand; he’s astute and ready, but casual about it at his post, and he watches the streets and waits for nothing.

It’s tugging him though, insistent, the breeze picks up and is grabbing at his shirt and at his shorts and at his sneakers and his arms and it wants him to cross his yard. It wants him to go down the street. It wants him to follow, it wants him to move, and it is trying to say something to him.

 _Trust me. Come with me_.

Donut listens hard, he closes his eyes and lets the lights dance behind his eyelids and he concentrates, but the voice is not a voice at all and it wants nothing but trouble. Donut does not move. He breathes, and he steals himself away from the fingers entangled in his hair and gripped tight to his shoulders.

“No thank you, I have to get to bed.”

It does not listen. It tries to bargain. Donut politely declines once more, and eventually it leaves him for someone else.

Finally, he is allowed to return to his house. He is careful in opening the door, careful in closing it, careful in locking it seven times and careful in leaving a gift on his porch steps the next morning.

 

_Good morning, good morning! what a day! What a night, last night! Boy was that wind sure crazy._

_Uh, first order of business: If anyone sees Georgia ‘round town, that’s not Georgia! Don’t follow him! He’ll probably eat you! He got caught by the wind! Ha ha!_

_Second order of business: Junior’s birthday party is tomorrow and it would be super fucking cool if you all showed up._

_Having the town to support youth like my son helps create a safety net of trustworthy adults to rely on, and more importantly: Confidence! Confidence is all a person needs to succeed, and it’s true because it rhymes._

_There’ll be pizza, and juice boxes and I even hired one of the clowns found wandering out in the desert to perform! Church tried to tell me that was a bad idea, but he’s a bitch, so fuck him!_

_The sky is clear, there are no newcomers to chase away with our daily-sharpened pitchforks and knives and machetes, and the librarians are safely chained away in the library. This is the Blood Gulch Radio Show and you are all blessed to be hearing the melodious voice of me: Lavernius Tucker! Enjoy!_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Again, to make myself completely, one-hundred percent clear, if you are a person that is not named Caboose – Michael Joel Caboose – and have new and relevant information, about the strange scream-like sound heard within the last twenty-seven hours at the Blood Gulch Postal Office, please, do not hesitate to call in said information._

Gooooood _morning, Blood Gulch, or good afternoon, or good_ evening _! Whichever one it is, there’s a man standing in the corner and he seems to have disrupted every electronic in the room except for this radio, so sorry if I’m on air a little late or a little early!_

_Good morning, strange man, I hope you’re having a good day – or night!_

_Yesterday, or last night, there was a great_ howling _at the post office. Yes, you heard right, ear witnesses report the scream of some feral beast ringing out from inside the small building._

_“It was just the most awful sounding thing you ever did hear”, said Florida when I interviewed him earlier this twenty-seven hour cycle. He was standing out in the street shirtless, shielding his eyes from the sun as he spoke, meters away from the Sheriff’s Secret Police’s yellow ‘You better not come over here, this is a perimeter’ tape. “It was loud and high-pitched, and then, all of a sudden, it got real quiet. Eerily quiet, with chills up the spine.”_

_Be careful out there, folks, the source of the sound has yet to be identified, and please do not hesitate to call in any new information you might have._

_More on this – Oh! We have a caller already._

_Hello?_

“Hi, hello, yes. I have information.”

_Hi…_

_Caboose…_

“Oh, hello… Tucker. Is there anyone else I can talk to?”

_This is my show, dude. And I thought I told you to stop calling the station when I’m on air._

“Why would you tell people to call you when they have information if you do not want them to call you?”

_Ok. What do you know, Caboose?_

“There was a screaming contest at the post office today.”

_What?_

“I was listening to the radio, and they said that today at the post office there were people screami-”

 _Alright, if anyone else has any information –_ new _information – please do not hesitate to call in._

_…_

_Again, to make myself completely, one-hundred percent clear, if you are a person that is not named Caboose – Michael Joel Caboose – and have new and relevant information, about the strange scream-like sound heard within the last twenty-seven hours at the Blood Gulch Postal Office, please, do not hesitate to call in said information._

_Anyways – Oh, another…_

_Jesus Christ, Caboose._

_Why?_

_…_

_This is – uh, this is the Blood Gulch Radio Show, and – Jesus, someone – can someone fucking block his number? Fuck – why hasn’t that been done already? Is it? Did you?_

_… No, it’s still ringing, Jesus, Palomo, you are the worst fucking intern ever, you_ do _realize that, right? How are you – How are you even still working here?_

_…_

_Palomo… Ok, dude, the intro music is playing; they can’t hear me._

_Are you… Are you fucking crying? Seriously?_

_Dude._

_What? No!_

_Look, you’re the fucking worst, but I hate you less than you think, and I’m sure – somewhere – there are people who actually like you for you, and the looks you claim to have. They’re not as good as my looks, bow chicka bow wow, but… you know, confidence, right?_

_Yes, I mean it. now shut the fuck up it’s starting in –_

_An open letter from me, to the trench coat wearing man in the corner of the recording booth: Who are you, oh, mysterious one? A figment of the radio station staff’s shared imagination? Or grim reality? What does that even mean? I said it and even I’m not sure._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mooooooooore Tucker! My boy!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “For the love of god, get off your fat ass and fucking help me.”
> 
> “No thanks, I’m fine where I am. My chair is shitty, the view is shitty, and you’re doing all the work. No better way to spend my day than this, Simmons.”

Some days, the counter rattles.

Some days, the glasses clink in the cupboard, like a little choir of sopranos working overtime.

Some days, he hears the sounds of distant explosions, and they go off for hours on end.

Matthews has never thought much about it, he’s usually busy, studying for his latest test or scrolling endlessly on his phone; but right now his phone is broken, and Bitters isn’t letting him study or even flip through his anatomy text book. They just sit on his front porch and drink their soda and talk.

Bitters is sunburned. He’s always sunburned, everyone in Blood Gulch is always sunburned, but Bitters is especially sunburned right now. His skin is darker than usual, not red, just a deeper brown, and Matthews is probably worse off. He doesn’t have the lightest skin, but it gets red and rashy all over his face, which is almost permanently pink, especially across the bridge of his nose.

Another boom, the house creaks, and Bitters doesn’t seem to notice or care.

“Do you hear that?” Matthews kind of wants him to notice and care, wants the reassurance that he’s not going crazy. Though… Who’s to say that he is? Maybe the sounds are real and everyone else is crazy for not hearing them?

That’s… That’s not a line of thought he wants to humor. Also, he’d probably get arrested for thinking that, so…

“The explosions?” Bitters asks, not so much as sparing Matthews a glance, like it’s a completely casual and normal thing to be asking about.

“Yea. The explosions.”

“Oh, then yea. I hear them.”

Matthews has to hold his breath, his eyebrows shoot up in the most surprised way and he looks sharply over at Bitters, who’s still casually lounging, one leg propped up on a step higher than the other. “You… do?”

“I mean, it shakes the whole town. Kinda hard to miss.”

“Where do they come from?”

“Fuck if I know.”

 

Matthews knows not to wander. You don’t go looking for stuff you don’t know about, not unless you want to turn up in the papers the next day along with all the other missing people. He doesn’t want to see his face on a flyer next to Doyle’s because that’d mean he’s as dumb as the guy who tried to run against Mayor Church during his fifth reelection.

The noises though, the explosions, so tangible but always just out of reach – Where do they come from? He has to know. Doctor Grey told him that knowledge is power and that curiosity is natural and good and that it should be pursued and so…

The desert only ever gets cold when the sun decides to set, hence the Blood Glulch phrase ‘once in a sunset’. Sometimes, on the rare occasion he reads a book, Matthews comes across the phrase ‘once in a blue moon’. That phrase is stupid and makes no sense. People can just make up objects in the sky now? The moon? Fucking Lame. Try harder. At the very least, mention some extraterrestrials.

The sun beats down on Matthews, it touches the back of his neck and sinks through his T-shirt, but his face is safe under a wide-brimmed, straw hat. Every once in a while, the wind tries to steal it, it makes his forehead itchy and it bends and wobbles, but the hat is good and reliable and he trusts it.

Matthews follows the noises: deep, rumbly explosions that resonate through his chest, quick and high-pitched _pop pop pops_ , and everything in between. He tramples over knee-high brush and avoids stepping in abandoned burrowing owl dens and he’s clumsy while doing it. He should have… He should have told someone where he was going, or brought someone along. This was stupid, but he’s too far into his treck to call a quits now.

Sometimes, there are breaks in between the bouts of firing, and as the sounds grow louder, as the sounds grow closer, Matthews begins to wonder if he’s going to get caught in one of the explosions, maybe be killed for seeing something he shouldn’t have. He begins to hear something else accompanying the terrifying sounds.

It’s quiet at first, slow on the uptake, Matthews doesn’t even realize he can hear something else until it’s loud and ringing in his ears. It echoes across the valley, annoying and insistent, and Matthews grows even more curious with it.

“For the love of god, get off your fat ass and fucking help me.”

“No thanks, I’m fine where I am. My chair is shitty, the view is shitty, and you’re doing all the work. No better way to spend my day than this, Simmons.”

“Sarge wants all of these tested by tomorrow, asshole. If you’d help, we’d be able to get out of the sun and relax for a couple hours more.”

“I’m relaxing right now. You just do your nerd thing.”

Matthews scrambles up a dirt mound, and then off a ways, sees two figures with their backs turned towards him. They’re having a conversation while shouting at each other, one is standing with a shot gun and the other is lounging in a foldable chair. Next to them is a truck, and in the bed of the truck is an endless stockpile of… Are all of those guns? Do they all count as guns? Small handguns, pistols, rifles, a fucking… Is that a fucking rocket launcher?

“You are so cleaning the kitchen by yourself today.” The man standing up steadies, aims, and shoots, and the man in the chair shrugs before looking away.

“That’s a problem for future me.”

Matthews realizes, right then, that he’d rather not know what this was all about.

He backs away slowly, sliding down the dirt mound on his knees, dirtying his jeans and turning the front of his shirt a light brown, and then once he deems himself out of sight, takes off running back towards town, right past a sign laying face down in the dirt. If he were to flip that sign over, he’d realize that this was a firing range, and that he should not have been wandering around like that. He doesn’t flip it over though; just kicks more dust over it and then trips over another face-down sign that says: ‘Warning: Ear Protection Required’ shortly after passing a completely intact and up-right sign that reads: ‘Warning: Sudden Gunfire’.

For someone who aces his tests, Matthews isn’t that bright.

He forgets his hat.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess some stuff does have a reasonable explanation.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Light comes in from outside, the sun blankets half the store, half the check out counter, and Church drags his stool farther back, into the shade, pulls out his phone, and settles in for the day.
> 
> People come and go, most cars pull in, refill, then ramble back out onto the main road. Other people park and come into the store, buy six packs and bags of chips and Andy’s pushing through the glass doors and taking a seat at the slot machines by ten thirty, like he’s synced with Church’s erratic schedule or whatever.

Church doesn’t wake up early. He throws the sheets off his body around nine, rolls into a sitting position at the side of the bed, his feet flat on the cold floor, and the sun is high, high, high in the sky.

The house is quiet, not a peep from the dog and that means Tex is already at work; A passing look out the living room window shows a driveway void of Tex’s car, and further proves this. Church opens the fridge, grabs a pack of Lunchables and eats it in the car on the way to the gas station.

They’re there when Church gets to work, camped out near pump two with lawn chairs and an endless supply of Aquafina water bottles, and they’re there when he leaves, the sun still as high and unchanged as it always is. They have a set up, a routine, and it’s just a part of Church’s life. Don’t question it. He doesn’t question it. You don’t question the people in suits.

There’s three of them in total, all of similar height and appearance, and they take turns sitting in a semi circle of lawn chairs with a cooler in front of them and a nice little beach umbrella. Faces as blank as a plain piece of paper, they watch the passing cars like vultures, and then they watch Church, haunted, with a look in their eye that Church can never quite place.

Church hits the concrete ramp leading into the gas station at around ten, his front bumper scrapes the pavement, passing the men already seated in their dirty rubber strapped lawn chairs, and he opens shop five minutes later, pulling up the rolling gate with some effort and turning on all the fluorescent lights. Just two guys today, blue eyes and black eyes, as deep as dark and as all encompassing as a moon-less night.

Light comes in from outside, the sun blankets half the store, half the check out counter, and Church drags his stool farther back, into the shade, pulls out his phone, and settles in for the day.

People come and go, most cars pull in, refill, then ramble back out onto the main road. Other people park and come into the store, buy six packs and bags of chips and Andy’s pushing through the glass doors and taking a seat at the slot machines by ten thirty, like he’s synced with Church’s erratic schedule or whatever.

He can’t concentrate today, though. Church can’t stop himself from stealing glances out into the parking lot, where the two men are sitting, and he’s getting antsy. His heart’s beating faster than it should, his palms are clammy, and the rhythmic _ka-clunk_ of the slot machine is driving him out of his mind. It’s an hour before closing time when the cigarette smoke begins to make his head throb, and Church calls a quits. Something is just _wrong_.

It’s hot out, it always is, and his lips are chapped. Church licks his lips, like he always does, and his nose itches. Andy stumbles off down the road, Church locks the door behind himself, and then walks across the bleached asphalt to his beater; hops in, cranks up the AC and cracks the windows, and rumbles off onto the highway, headed home.

It’s a low speed chase of sorts, Church pulls off the major road into a more residential area, less traffic, more lonely gravel driveways and single-wide homes with sinking foundations and stubbly trees, and then he notices it, a black van behind him. It’s got crazy ass antennas on the top, like wire elk antlers jutting out and spinning, and the windows are tinted to match the finish, a sleek, dark black. Faintly, Church can make out two figures sitting in the front seat. He thinks he recognizes them, the shape of them, and something stills his limbs. He feels the cold fuzz of fear bubble up in his chest, he finds himself constantly checking his rear-view mirror, and he can’t go home, can he?

It’s not a question, it’s a statement because he knows he can’t go home. That’s not something he should do.

Church stutters, he freezes up and he can’t stop looking over his shoulder. He keeps the car steady, and turns right at the next junction to test whether or not the van is actually following him. Maybe they’re just internet repair people, going about their business? A little late for that, but who knows, right?

The van follows.

Church turns right again, and the van follows.

Right one more time, and he’s back on the road he started on, he went around a block in a circle, and the van follows.

Next, Church does a figure eight around two blocks, a more complex maneuver that is less likely to be made by some innocent repair people circling a block, trying to figure out which house they’ve been called to, and the van follows.

The van keeps on his tail, the shadows in the driver and passenger seats don’t flinch, don’t hesitate, don’t move, just follow.

This is it. He’s being taken in, isn’t he? The suits, the eyes, he should have known; but what else was he supposed to do? Shoo them away?

Church drives on instinct, down the same, long, straight road without any clue what he’s supposed to do next: _Give up? Run? Evade? How?_

His phone rings, he picks up, and Tex makes a scene out of staring down his stalkers when she pulls up next to him in her car.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weeelp here we go,, Church, my boy, do your stuff.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Though this is being read by a filthy blue (that’s me!) and advertised on the enemy’s radio (The Blood Gulch Radio Show), Red Army Surplus adamantly maintains it’s pride and in no way condones their backwards Blue ways.

_Now, a word from our sponsors!_

_First up is Apple. Think different._

_“Have you ever wanted to slow down? Is life chugging along at a pace that is, frankly, too fast for you? Do you need a break? Are you tired? Are you not sure what you’re doing anymore? Does the future look bleak? Do you need to prolong your stay in the present in order to avoid the future? Is the future… scary? Are you afraid of it?_

_“Well, welcome to fucking reality, pal, because the future is here, sleak and shiny with new versions of grey and black and you have to suck it up. We won’t stop making new iPhones until the sun fucking explodes and kills us all, you materialistic fucks._

_“Apple presents the phone of the future: The iPhone 12._

_‘This is the future and you have to get over yourself and buy it or we’ll really give you something to be afraid of.”_

_Great! Personally, I’m exited for the new iPhone! I hear they’re adding an app that lets you track the unpredictable movements of those pesky glowing radiation storms!_

_If only somebody had thought of that earlier.._

_Anyways, Next up is a local establishment!_

_It uh… It comes with a disclaimer that, legally, I am obliged to read, so… yea. These are not my words, again, I’m reading all of the ads off of a piece of paper that’s been given to me by my dick of an intern, Palomo._

_The disclaimer reads: Though this is being read by a filthy blue (that’s me!) and advertised on the enemy’s radio (The Blood Gulch Radio Show), Red Army Surplus adamantly maintains it’s pride and in no way condones their backwards Blue ways._

_Red Army Surplus. Eat a freshly baked donut while blowing your enemy fifty feet in the air._

_“We’ve got the goods, here at Red Army Surplus. More specifically, baked goods and weapons just shy of mass destruction! The good goods! The best goods! The goods nobody else can beat with prices nobody else can beat! Think of it as an illegal monopoly if you want, but know that we’ve already called the police on you and you’ll be investigated for being a communist and un-American and a blue!_

_Suck it, Blues!_

_“So, if you’re ever feeling like an apple strudel or getting a nice, custom made shotgun with affordable and top-of-the-line customer service and maintenance, then head on down to Red Army Surplus, in the middle of the vacant lot on Mountain Song and Big Boy roads._

_“Please do not speak to the teenagers congregated to scream into the void ‘round back of the building, they are cautiously and humanely being taken care of.”_

 

“Sarge, they’re back again.” Donut calls over his shoulder to the back room. He’s peering through the window near the weapons on display out into the desert beyond. There’s a winding, shuffling line of adolescents slowly making their way to the back of the store, near the dumpster and fire-escape with no actual ‘escape’. He’s cautious to not look at any one teenager for too long, wary of what might happen to him. Their eyes glint in the sun.

Sarge heaves a loud sigh, like his whole afternoon has been interrupted, the sigh that he usually reserves for when he finds Grif in the walk in freezer with a sample of every pie in the display case.

Donut waits, knows Sarge’s reply is coming, and then the silence is broken by his superior’s gruff voice.

“You get the spray, I’ll get the stick.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Haha I'm losing my steam and everything is great. I wrote up a bunch of chapters a couple weeks ago and I'm looking back over them and not liking them a single bit, but I feel like this one came out.. okay-ish and I haven't updated in a while so heres to me swallowing my insecurities and just posting shit. More red team to come later, because I love them.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You are driving through the desert, and it is dark, and you should know where you’re going, but you don’t because – look, there it is, the gas station that you passed just ten minutes ago. The same two men sit under the floodlights, facing the store. The same pump is out. The same ‘open’ sign is glowing. The same attendant sits with her feet on the counter as she plays video games instead of watching the security camera feed.

_You are a woman. You’re wearing jeans and some new flip-flops you bought at a target somewhere in Colorado and a T-shirt that used to belong to your dad. You remember his laugh, the way car headlights would slide across his face as he drove down this very road, and you miss him._

_You miss the way he’d hum and how he’d check on you, curled up in the passenger seat as you slept. You miss the way he’d smile at your mom on the Skype calls and how he’d race to her when she stepped off her plane, you on his hip and then you’d be crushed into a hug and he’d kiss her on the nose and forehead and mouth because he’s so proud of her and he’s so proud of you._

_Yea, dad’s are great. I know because I am one, but this is about you, not me, I’m not important in this story._

_No, what’s important right now is you, stranded in this drawn out moment of time that will simultaneously both last a lifetime and a mere moment, that you’ll simultaneously think about constantly, yet never remember._

_You are driving through the desert, and it is dark, and you should know where you’re going, but you don’t because – look, there it is, the gas station that you passed just ten minutes ago. The same two men sit under the floodlights, facing the store. The same pump is out. The same ‘open’ sign is glowing. The same attendant sits with her feet on the counter as she plays video games instead of watching the security camera feed._

_You don’t know what road you’re on, if you accidentally took an exit off the loneliest road in America or not and you’re beginning to feel unnerved – but a detached sort of unnerved because you’re not exactly following a timetable here. This is just a trip, just a drive like any others, from west to east and you do it all the time._

_That gas station though, you don’t recognize it, don’t remember ever seeing it before tonight and in your book, that’s a pretty good reason to begin feeling a little worried about your state of mental health._

_Breathe easy, though, the sun begins to rise in your eyes and you turn to face away from the glare. When you look back, you find yourself in Utah and you –_

_Well, listeners, we lost her._

_Lets all take a moment to wish our dearest Vanessa a safe trip and a safe return to our homely, little town!_

_In other news: The weather._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hhhhmmmmmmmmmm Kimball.

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of these ideas come from either [ this post](https://www.tumblr.com/dashboard/blog/fytehardman/154077661651), or Welcome To Night Vale, or my own experiences/imagination. Welcome To Night Vale is a great podcast and everyone should check it out on iTunes, or Youtube or wherever you can find it, and I honestly don’t do it justice here. I’m mixing my two passions, RvB and unexplained shit and life is great.  
> My Tumblr is [@Captainsimmons](https://captainsimmons.tumblr.com)


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